


there's no room in this hell, there's no room in the next

by soitgoes



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, F/M, Forced Marriage, Forced Pregnancy, Gen, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, Pseudo-Incest, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-01-23 07:53:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18545497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soitgoes/pseuds/soitgoes
Summary: "With Number Two and Number Four...displaced and Number Six no longer able to complete the mission, the task now falls to you, Number Five."After other methods to produce new members fail, Reginald aims to use the current Academy members to create new ones.





	1. its been eight bitter years since i've been seeing your face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO!!! I have rewritten this first chapter and combined it with what was a originally the second chapter. Originally, I had meant for that first chapter to just be a one-shot, a two-shot at most but after some deliberation I decided that I wanted to make this into a full blown multi-chapter fic. After deciding that it became apparent that I need to make some changes and rewrite some things. 
> 
> Biggest differences are Five and Vanya's ages. They are 23 rather than 19 and they haven't seen each other in 8 years instead of 4. Besides that, pretty much everything is the same.
> 
> Please, please comment and review. They keep me alive.

There’s a grim inevitability in the way she stands in the doorway. She’s in a set of those stupid uniform pajamas that they used to wear when they were kids. The light pouring in from the hallway cuts the shape of her body into a dark figure. From his seat on the bed, she seems to be like a specter, a hallucination or a trick of the light. He half expects her to disintegrate into the air as soon as he looks away but then she steps into the room, into the light and there she is, as real as anything.

_Vanya_

Her hands are shaking. She tries to hide it from him but Five had always been observant, perhaps obsessively so, when it came to his sister. He can tell she’s upset by the way she keeps her eyes downcast as she works the buttons of her shirt open. How fitting that her dark hair should fall about her like a widow's shroud. She _is_ a widow of sorts. Five knows that something as petty as marriage was never part of Reginald’s plan but the old man had practically chained her to Ben back when he decided that they would be the back up plan if Allison and Luther failed. But poor old Reggie didn’t expect Ben to bite the big one before he could perform.

Five isn’t entirely heartless. He feels genuinely sorry for Ben’s gruesome death and he would have preferred that it happen any other way. But Five was a pragmatist through and through. Where Ben loses big, Five reaps the benefits. He does find himself wondering if he could have saved Ben had he not been halfway across the world at the time. More to the point, Five wonders if he would have.

Soon enough, she is slipping her shirt off her shoulders and stepping carefully out of the pants pooled at her feet. She stands before him, stripped down to her pale, cotton underwear. Her head is bowed low, eyes cast to the floor and her arms hang loosely at her sides. She is like a martyr waiting for her reckoning and he is the cross to which she will be nailed.

Reginald’s voice crackles into air, “Number Five and Number Seven, you have been adequately briefed on the task at hand. I trust you both know what is expected of you.”

The old man’s voice is tinny coming from the old speakers. In front of him, Vanya is silent. She hasn’t lifted her head even once. His eyes have fallen to the subtle contour of her nipples beneath the thin fabric of her bra. Five can barely contain the urge to reach up and roll them between his fingers through the cotton.

Five tears his eyes away from her to glare at the speaker, “Yup. We got it.”

At the sound of Five’s voice, Vanya jumps a little and finally, finally she lifts her head enough to look at him. Her wide eyes are even wider and rounder than usual. It’s as if she had forgotten he was there and only then, when she heard him speak, did she remember. He wants to shake her, squeeze and press until he leaves an impression in her in the shape of his hand, his body, his entire soul. It is him she’s with. Not the ghost of their dead brother or the romantic ideal she’s cooked up in her mind.

Looking up into her face, Five can see that Vanya hasn’t changed much in the eight years since he’s seen her last. She’s just as small and plain at twenty-three as she had been at fifteen but there are subtle differences here and there. He drinks them in like a man dying of thirst. Her face has lost much of its roundness, baby fat falling away and leaving behind a dainty heart-shaped face that suited her large brown eyes. Vanya is older now but she still has the look of someone who still dreams, still believes in fairy tales. He knows she does, knows she still a romantic at her. He can practically smell it on her. But there's no white knight waiting in the wings. It is just him, it's always been him.

She still wears her hair the same, long and straight but she’s let her fringe grow out a couple inches so that it curls about her face. Her eyes are red-rimmed as she stares at him like she’s been crying. She probably has been and that’s only fair, he isn’t who she had been expecting. He wonders briefly what she sees looking out at her from his own eyes. Does he seem as desperate as he feels? Can she see behind his eyes the secret he’s kept for as long as he can remember? Can she see the blistering desire that he’s kept lit like a beacon for eight years just for her?

Her lips part, he wants so badly to taste them when she stutters, “d-do you want me to turn the lights off?”

Her voice leaves Five feeling like he’s been run through with a hot poker. How very... _Vanya._ She wants mood lighting. She had probably hoped for romance too. Soft lighting, perhaps a poem, and gentle hands. What she had hoped for was Ben, that’s who was originally supposed to be her partner. But that isn’t what she’ll get. What she gets is Five.

Ben had been a romantic too. Sometimes, Five would catch Ben and Vanya huddled together over some romance novel or pouring over books of poetry that they had swiped from the library. They would read out and whisper the words to one another and smile. Five hated seeing them like that. Such a perfect pair of turtledoves, twittering on about love and romance. But they were a pair no longer. What was that old adage? When one turtledove dies?

Everyone else is gone. Ben is dead. Klaus and Diego have run off to god knows where. All the turtledoves flown away but Vanya remains. But that just proves it. She was supposed to be his match all along. Not Diego’s or Klaus’. Not Ben’s. His . And she can wring her shaking hands and hold back her tears as much as she wants but it won’t change what is true.

“Five?” she says, the sound of his name from her lips leaves him feeling wild and voracious. “The lights?”

The funny thing is, he had almost managed to forget her. Eight years of silence had almost felt like eight years of peace. He reaches up to skim his fingertips along the skin of her shoulder. Vanya gasps at the contact. Then she yelps when he suddenly tangles his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck. He pulls back so that all she can do is look up into his eyes.  

“Leave them on.”

* * *

 **Two** **Weeks Ago**

Five had been in the middle of giving a lecture when the news came in about Ben. By now, the Academy feels like a distant memory. Sometimes people still ask about his unusual name or his mysterious past but he simply answers that he had had an unconventional upbringing and leaves it at that. With the reputation he's built up over the years, only the very brave and the very stupid would press him further about who he really is. He is still expected to keep up a regular, one-way correspondence with the Academy. He sends in a monthly report of his progress which he's sure no one reads. Once a year he receives a card commemorating the day of his birth. It isn't signed but the simple yet foreboding, black symbol of an opened umbrella on the front lets him know where it's from. But besides that, he hears nothing from his brothers and sisters, nothing from Reginald, not even Pogo keeps in touch. It used to sting but Five has convinced himself that it doesn't matter anymore. It's as the old man said, they were never really a family.

He's on his second lecture of the day when Greta, an assistant from the department’s office, bursts into the hall just as he’s beginning his lesson with a look of urgency on her face. She makes absolutely no effort to be discreet when she tells him that someone named Pogo has called with urgent news. Despite her sudden in-burst, the class is eerily silent. It’s only two weeks into the semester but Five’s reputation as an unforgiving and strict lecturer precedes him. No one makes a move; no one makes a sound in response to Greta’s interruption, least of all Five.

“He’s still on hold, in the office,” she explains further, her voice is smaller now, sheepish even. When Five gives no response, she seems at a loss. An embarrassed flush colors her plump cheeks as she says, “I’ve brought a TA to fill in for the rest of your lecture.”

Five sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He glances through the door window and sees some random TA waiting outside. They are busy typing on their phone and then of all things the nameless TA holds up the device and takes a picture, a selfie. Five turns his attention back to Greta.

“Don’t bother. You’ve already spoiled their concentration. They’ll be practically useless now,” he says to her and then turns to address the class. “You’re all dismissed for today. I still expect you to finish tonight’s reading by next class. Be prepared to be tested on it.”

There’s a rumbling of uncertain murmurs throughout the hall. Despite what he’s said no one moves.

“What part of ‘you’re all dismissed’ didn't you understand?” he nearly shouts.

With that, the hall erupts with the sound of bags zippering and books closing. Here and there he hears students already theorizing what kind of urgent news would cause the infamous Professor Hargreeves to cancel class.

“Lead the way, Greta,” he says ushering her out of the hall.

Five has every intention of berating Pogo for ruining a perfectly good lecture. There’s nothing more valuable to instruction than a consistent schedule. The whole semester has been thrown off when a simple email surely would have sufficed.

“I don’t know what this is all about but -” Five begins what would have been a furious rant for the ages.

All Pogo says is his name. The number five has surely never been said in such a tone, both grave and broken. It is enough to shut Five up. In all his life, he’s never heard Pogo sound so shaken.

“I’m afraid...there’s been an accident,” he says and Five’s hand tightens around the receiver. The plastic creaks beneath his grip. “Ben is - he...there was an accident.”

It takes little more than a quick, curt email explaining the situation to cancel the rest of his lectures for the week. He packs lightly, not expecting to stay much longer than a few days. He gets into the airport around noon. A car is waiting for him outside the airport and in less than an hour, the spindly mental gate of the Umbrella Academy come into view. Pogo meets him at the door.

“Welcome home, Five,” he says the warmth in his voice only slightly dampened by the the somber look on his face.

Five replies with a curt nod seeing no point in challenging Pogo's sentiment though it is grossly inaccurate. The Academy has never been a home to him or to anyone else. It is more cage than abode. Pogo approaches and tries to take his bag but Five shakes him off. The long trip has left him more than a little irate but he does his best to keep his temper in check.

Pogo motions for Five to follow him but Five frowns and says, "I still remember the way."

Still, Pogo trails behind him as he makes his way to the wing where their rooms are kept. He wonders if Pogo is sincerely worried that Five may get lost or if he's just bored. Five imagines that the old man is not much company and Grace can barely hold a conversation outside of homemaking. He figures it is probably a little bit of both. The house seems eerily quiet, even more so than he remembers it being as a child. They creak their way up the stairs and Five is met by the sight of five, empty, open rooms and one closed door on the far right. The open rooms are darkened, obviously abandoned for months except for the one he knows to be Ben's. Five trails over to it and peers inside. The bed is still unmade, a couple of socks strewn on the floor. A book lies open and faced down on the desk that's pushed up against the left wall.  

“Where is everyone?” he says quietly.

Pogo comes shambling up the stairs to stand besides him in the empty hall.

“Luther is on assignment. After what happened with Ben...your father thought it best to keep him busy.”

“What about the others?” he says and winces at his desperate tone.

It’s obvious that he’s asking after one person in particular. Pogo, thankfully, either doesn’t notice or he is kind enough to ignore the true meaning behind Five's words.

“Luther is the only member of the Academy who stays here on a regular basis.”

Five glances down the hallway at Luther’s door. It’s wide open and though it’s dark within, Five can see the room’s contents, orderly and untouched for what has probably been months.

“The only other one who stayed was Ben but…” Pogo trails off and looks to Five nods in understanding.

Pogo seems relieved that he need not elaborate. Despite himself, Five’s eyes stray to her door. Unlike the others, her door is closed. He glances down at little gap left between the bottom of her door and the floor. It's dark.

Five feels like laughing. He had been the first one to leave and now he is the only one to come back.

As if he’s read Five's mind, Pogo says, “Ms. Vanya returned a couple days ago but she had some personal affairs to attend to before the funeral. She should be back by tonight."

Pogo’s words hit him like a sledgehammer. She’s here, in the same country, the same city and soon to be the same house. Five continues to the stare at the sea foam green door. In his mind's eye he can see, beyond the flimsy barrier, into the room within. Her tiny desk would be nestled in the far corner, strewn with sheet music. Mozart mixed in with the Prokofiev, Mahler besides the Rachmaninoff. Vanya could be reckless like that sometimes, mixing musical eras together. Her walls would still be sparsely decorated with photos of her favorite composers, a few small trinkets. Nothing so gauche and gaudy as Allison’s room but still speckled with evidence of some kind of life lived within that tiny space.

In his memory, the little window, the only one in the room, lets in the afternoon light and paints the whole room golden. And her bed pushed up against the left wall, he remembers the way the sunlight had been splashed across it that last afternoon before he left eight years ago. Her cheeks flushed and tacky with half-dried tears. The blood on the sheets, the tears caught in her eye lashes. He feels foolish for ever thinking he could forget her. The feeling of that thin, twin-sized mattress beneath his knees, the squeak of metal coils as the smell of her sweat rises up from beneath him is seared into his memory. He knows it better than the inside of his own eyelids.

"Number Five?" Pogo's voice snaps him from his reverie. "Perhaps you should get some rest. You’ve had a long journey."

He nods but his gaze still lingers on her door. Pogo waits until Five finally turns away and heads up the flight of stairs that lead up to his own room. Once Five is settled, Pogo leaves him to his own devices and Five is grateful for the solitude. Looking around, he feels nothing at the sight of all his childhood belongings. No nostalgia or fondness for the child he once was, Five feels like a stranger in his own room.

With nothing else to do, Five takes Pogo’s advice and stretches out on his old bed. It’s far more cramped than he remembers. He stands at over six feet now. The ceiling above him grows darker and darker as afternoon passes into evening. He turns over and lets one hand hang off the side of the bed and presses it against the floor like he had done so many times before back when he was a child. She isn't there below him. He knows her room is still empty but soon it won't be. The though alone causes his heart to race. He keeps his hand on the floor, the sensation of the cool, flat surface as comforting and familiar as a lullaby. He doesn’t even remember closing his eyes.

* * *

Vanya stares into the lukewarm cup of coffee in front of her. Brown, irregular shapes dot the small round dish that the cup had been brought on, dried drops of spilled coffee. She isn’t sure if those had been there all along or if the spilled coffee had been on her part. Vanya can barely even remember how she got to the diner. All she remembers is Atsuko calling her and practically begging her to meet and talk about her recent resignation from her program at Curtis. She had texted Vanya an address and the next thing Vanya knew she was sitting across from her mentor of three years in a dinner somewhere in the Lower East Side.

“Vanya, did you hear what I said?”

Vanya's eyes snap up to the woman sitting across from her. Atsuko's face is a portrait of concern, her dark eyes search Vanya’s face for some sort of reaction to what she’s just said but finds only sheepish apology. Vanya smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes and Atsuko frowns.

“Sorry," Vanya says as she looks away.

Vanya can't seem to meet her former mentor's gaze for too long without feeling guilty. Outside the window, the city bustles on even as the orange glow of the summer afternoon drains to twilight. Soon the street lamps will turn on and the twilight haze will pass into night. The thought of night coming causes a knot to form in the pit of Vanya’s stomach. Evening brings with it the inevitability of returning to the Academy.

"I just got a little lost in my head.”

Atsuko clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She waves down a waitress and asks in a soft but stern voice for a menu. As she does this, she reaches across the table and takes hold of the saucer on which Vanya’s cold cup of coffee sits.

“Perhaps tea instead,” she says more to the waitress than to Vanya. “Too late for coffee. Do you have something herbal, chamomile? No? That’s okay. Just something warm will be good. Thank you.”

Atsuko means well and after three years Vanya is used to her invasive manner. Atsuko had taken Vanya under her wing three years ago, when Vanya had moved to Philadelphia to study at Curtis. Over the past three years, Vanya had, at times, found herself wishing that Atsuko had been her mother. It was a shame the older woman didn’t have any children of her own. Although Vanya had loved Grace in her own way, the android had been more of a nanny than anything else to her. But Atsuko had been everything Vanya could have wanted in a mother. She was kind yet stern, giving but rarely overbearing. Atsuko had a way of drawing people in, not in a seductive way but in the way that a hearth gathers weary travelers, the way the shore brings in the the sea.

However, looking at her now from across the diner table, Vanya feels the maternal bond between them shift. She feels strangely protective towards the older woman and it is for this reason that Vanya doesn’t admit to her the truth of why she has left the institute. What good is it to tell her who and what she truly is? Why inflict what waits for her onto someone else?

Suddenly, Atsuko reaches across the table to take Vanya's hand in her own. A sudden compulsion to rip her hand back passes through Vanya like a shudder but it goes as quickly as it comes. Instead, she turns her hand over so that her palm meets the cool, soft palm of her mentor.

“Yacchi," Atsuko's voice cracks with emotion when she calls Vanya by the nickname she had bestowed upon her years ago. "I know you're going through a difficult time but leaving the program, throwing away all your hard work? Is that really best.

Though she had lived in the states for well over a decade, Atsuko's English still retains a soft accent. It gives a lovely roundness to her words, an openness that had drawn Vanya in immediately when they had first met. Now her sweet voice, so caring and concerned, makes Vanya feel like curling in on herself. She feels bad for Atsuko, struggling so hard against a fate that Vanya had long since resigned herself to. Vanya wishes so much that she could comfort her, tell Atsuko that she is a lost cause.

"I've spoken with Administration. They will let you take a sabbatical, a whole semester, even a year if it’s what you need. You don't have to decide right now, you have time."

On the contrary, time is exactly what Vanya lacks. She glances down at her watch. She's expected back at the Academy in less than an hour and the subway ride alone will take her thirty minutes. Outside the daylight grows dimmer and dimmer.

“Please tell me that you’ll think about it,” Atsuko pleads and Vanya tries not to meet the other woman’s eyes as she nods.

The tea and menu that Atsuko had asked for arrive after a few minutes. In the steaming liquid, Vanya sees her own sepia reflection staring back at her like a stranger in a photo.

“I’ll think about it,” she lies.

Vanya knows that her mind is already made up.

* * *

A flurry of knocks at the door startles Five into the waking darkness of his room. At first he doesn’t know exactly where he is. He almost shouts in German for whoever is at his door to quiet down, thinking that he's still in Berlin. But the events of the last few days come back all at once and he feels heavier for it. He remembers that terrible phone call, the flight from Berlin, and of course he remembers that he is back. He is back at the Academy. His head is still full of sleepy fuzz when he glances at his watch. Bright, green numbers tell him that it is 11:23 pm. Another series of knocks, this time a little louder, comes from the door.

“’m coming,” he croaks.

It takes more effort than he’d like to admit to sit upright and swing his legs over the side of the bed. Glancing down at his feet, he finds them without shoes but he assumes that he had kicked them off in his sleep. Light spills into the darkness of the room from the gap at the bottom of his door. Within the light, two shadows are cast, no doubt from his insistent knocker. He lets loose a heavy sigh and pushes himself off the mattress. The metal frame creaks with the sudden motion. It takes him only a few seconds to cross the room and crack the door open. Five finds Pogo waiting outside.

“Apologies, Number Five, I know it’s late but your father wishes to see you in his office immediately.”

Five resists the urge to groan. He had foolishly hoped that he wouldn’t need to see the old bag at all. Number Five shuffles back to the bed and seeks out his shoes. He finds them placed neatly at the foot of his bed. Strange, but Five is still too groggy to wonder at them. As he leaves his room and shambles down the stairs, he glances at Vanya's door. It's still dark and he tries to ignore the way his stomach drops.

This time he’s glad to follow Pogo’s lead. It isn’t that he’s forgotten the way to his father’s study but rather that he barely has the mental facilities to find his way out of a paper bag at the moment. Sleepy oblivion doesn’t last long, however. As waking rushes in, panic rises through the fog of his sleep-addled mind and with it his pulse. He is suddenly hyper aware of his surroundings. He knows this walk, it is scarred into his mind so that even at twenty-three he feels again like a child.

By the time they reach the sliding door that leads to Reginald’s study, Five is nearly sweating. His hand shakes a little as he reaches up for the handle. He pulls back only to find that the door is locked. He doesn’t understand at first and looks to Pogo for an explanation. The old chimpanzee can offer none beyond an apologetic but urging look. With that, Five realizes what his father wants him to do. Nothing is ever easy with Reginald Hargreeves, everything a task, everything a test.

It takes little more than a thought, a whim really to summon the blue crackling energy about himself. He’s never around to experience it himself but he remembers being told once that when he winks out of existence, there is a smell in the air like just before an electrical fire starts or when lightning is about to strike. As soon as the blue light overtakes him, he is met with the feeling of being compressed. Smaller and smaller until he is nothing, less than nothing, negative space. And for the smallest fraction of a moment Five feels that he is everywhere and nowhere all at once. It is terrifying and thrilling and when Five pops back into existence like a rubber band snapping back into its original shape, he feels dizzy with delirious joy at using his ability once again.

That joy is quickly squashed when he hears, "good to know you are still able to perform spatial jumps, Number Five."

Eight years and the old man still evokes such a vicious feeling of disgust and dread. Five feels as though he is fifteen again.

“Sit,” Reginald commands and Five complies without hesitation. “We have much to discuss.”

  



	2. feel you from the inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter has a sexually explicit scene.
> 
> So fyi, I rewrote this fic. What was originally the second chapter got combined into the first chapter so if you think you read the second chapter of this fic, consider going back to chapter 1 and then reading this chapter. A few things have changed and it might help to read it from the beginning. 
> 
> Also, I deleted the original chapter 2 but I didn't know that all the comments that you guys left for that particular chapter also got deleted but I still have them and cherish them a lot!
> 
> I'm kinda nervous guys this fic is waaaay out of my comfort zone. Hopefully, it isn't too terrible. Please, please comment and review!

 

Vanya misses dinner. It hadn’t been a mistake per say but she also had not intended to stay at the diner as long as she had. She didn’t lose track of time either, in fact she had been hyper aware of each second that ticked by. It is just that Vanya could not bring herself to get up from the booth and return to the Academy. Instead, she watches the afternoon pass into evening through the diner window. The people bustling about, the cars and bicycles flying by, they seem like a silent film set in a frame created by the wide window pane.

Atsuko stays with her for a little while longer but she has a flight back to Philadelphia in a couple hours. As she leaves, Atsuko repeats her earlier sentiment.

“Please, Vanya. Don’t throw away everything you’ve worked for.”

Vanya only nods and waves goodbye as Atsuko passes in front of her line of sight outside the window. An hour passes and Vanya barely moves. The waitress swings by a few times but after Vanya politely declines any further service the woman decides to ignore her in favor of some of the more active customers. After that, Vanya is left to stare out at the city as it moves before her. Everything out there is so alive, practically vibrating with vitality. Vanya watches it all go by from behind that plate glass, not the only thing separating her from the outside. 

It’s nearly 10:00 by the time Vanya returns to the Academy. The house is dark and cavernous when she enters the foyer but Vanya’s grateful for the silence. She had returned the day before and had been greeted by Pogo and Grace. And though they had been as warm and inviting as they had always been, Vanya had always preferred a more subtle entrance. The attention the give her only serves to make her uncomfortable. 

Vanya glances up the stairs that she knows leads to their rooms but doesn’t go up. Being in her old room again had been more overwhelming than she had expected. Too many memories, too many hours spent in the afternoon light trying to keep herself from crawling out of her own skin on that spring mattress. She can't go back there just yet but there's no where else to go. Vanya is considering just turning around and leaving when she hears the familiar click of perfectly measures steps.

“Oh Vanya, dear,” comes a familiar voice from behind her. “You’re home.”

Vanya turns and is met with the sight of Grace in her pink and black polka-dotted skirt, her white shirt pressed and perfect. The woman smiles at her blankly, red lips pulled back to reveal a perfect, white set of teeth.

“Hi, Mom,” Vanya replies with as much warmth and kindness that she can muster.

She tries to return Grace’s smile but the corners of her mouth feel too heavy. Vanya only manages to grimace and there is shift behind Grace’s eyes.

“You seem upset, darling,” she approaches with a perfectly measured pace.

Not too fast to seem like an attack but with enough urgency to convey a healthy amount of concern. Grace had been designed to be the perfect maternal figure but she had been made by a man who was and still is devoid of any sort of warmth or kindness. Even when the perfect picture of maternal concern, the dissonance of her origins shines through.

“No, Mom. I’m okay,” Vanya mumbles, as Grace approaches Vanya instinctively takes a step back. “Sorry I missed dinner.”

Grace stops her approach about a foot away to stand before Vanya, her perfect face looming above. She slowly tips her head to the side and never once do the curls in her hair move out of place. Grace’s expression is a perfect rendition of motherly concerns, eyebrows pinched at the middle of her forehead and the corners of her red mouth down-turned but there is an absence behind the eyes.

“Not to worry. I kept your place setting out,” Grace says she reaches up a hand and places it on Vanya’s cheek.

Then she gives Vanya a smile as though they are sharing a secret like a real mother would and Vanya is struck by a sudden stab of affection for her mother, android or no. Grace walks past her turning back to motion Vanya to follow her into the dining room. Vanya considers not following, just turning around and making a run for it. She is so tired and Grace wouldn’t mind, if she even noticed. As gentle and giving as Grace was, there was something that had always been missing in her. Once Vanya had noticed it, she could no longer nurse the illusion that Grace was really her mother. Instead, it had fostered a feeling of camaraderie towards her android mother. Vanya had always felt that she was missing some pieces too. It's this sense of allegiance that keeps Vanya from simply turning tail and running.

“Come sit, dear,” Grace says pulling out the chair that sits at the end of the long dining table, opposite the head of the table.

Sure enough a place had been set in front of Vanya’s old seat. She sits and looks around, the dining hall had been built to hold natural light best but Grace had turned on a few lamps. Besides the dim lighting, Vanya is struck by how almost nothing has changed. Even the lonesomeness feels familiar. The Academy had sat there together for every meal possible since as far back as Vanya can remember and yet it would have been just the same had they never sat down together at all.

Grace’s hands on her shoulders pull Vanya from her thoughts, “I’ll be right back with something hot.”

Despite not eating anything all day, Vanya isn’t hungry but she doesn’t have the heart to say so. Grace presses the palm of her left hand against Vanya’s cheek again. It is cool and dry to the touch, this time Vanya finds it a little easier to smile up at Grace and the android bustles away. In the wake of her absence, Vanya’s eyes fall naturally on the seat to her left. There’s a set of plates and utensils there as well.

“Mom?” her voice is strained and barely above a whisper.

Vanya leans forward in her chair. Even in the dim lighting, her fingers easily find the small knick in the dark wood where Five had stuck his dinner knife when they were thirteen. Grace re-enters the room, with her comes the smell of chicken and cooked vegetables.

“Is something the matter, Vanya?” she says as she puts the plate of food down before Vanya.

Vanya’s heart is in her throat when she asks, “Why are there two settings?”

Reginald had told her that she had been the only one to return. Her own heartbeat is like a drum, filling her ears.

“Oh! Your brother missed dinner as well. Pogo tried to wake him but it’s good to let young people sleep in a little. You’re all still growing you know.”

She can barely breathe.

“My brother? Luther’s back?”

Grace stares down at her and for a few seconds her face is frozen, blank. Grace did this sometimes, staring off into space or simply just pausing. To children who had never spent more than an hour or so around other people, Grace’s small ticks and idiosyncrasies had hardly even registered. But after years of living outside of the Academy, Grace’s true nature could hardly be concealed from Vanya. A few more seconds pass and then the spell is broken, Grace’s face breaks open into one of those unnervingly perfect smiles.

“Oh no, not Luther, dear. Number Five. He’s asleep upstairs so we’ll have to be quiet and careful not to wake him.”

Vanya doesn’t mean to be rude but before Grace can finish her sentence, Vanya is up from her seat and rushing towards the stairs. Behind her, Vanya hears Grace call after her but Vanya cannot even fathom slowing down let alone stopping. Before she knows it, she is standing in his doorway.

She opens her mouth as if she wants to say something and immediately feels silly trying to talk to someone who’s asleep. He is just a shape in the darkness but she knows it is him. Eight years and however many thousands of miles that had been between them feel as insubstantial as air. She knows him as well as she knows her own face, no amount of time or distance could change this. Her hands are shaking as she steps into the room and makes her way to his side.

By now, her eyes had fully adjusted to the dark and the closer she gets the better she can see him. He’s older and yet she can still see within his face the boy she had known before. He’s still in his jacket and shoes. Cheek pressed into the bed, his mouth slightly ajar. His hair is a mess, pomade causing his hair to stick up in all directions. He looks so wholly unsophisticated sleeping on his stomach like a child.

Vanya is suddenly aware of a sensation, like someone knocking on her chest from the inside. Her heart is beating so wildly that she thinks it might burst from her chest.

_ Oh,  _ she thinks.  _ I'm alive. _

As though the thought had only just occurred to her. She’s alive.

“Miss Vanya.”

Pogo’s voice breaks through her revelation, pinning her back to the ground. Still, she can’t take her eyes off of his sleeping face.

“Your father wants to speak with you.”

Vanya glances back at Pogo. His face is somber as he glances between her and Five, apologetic even. She nods but before she leaves she goes to the foot of the bed. Her hands are shaking as she gently removes his shoes and places them on the floor. Pogo watches her all the while, his heart heavy at her tender actions.

The walk to Reginald’s office barely registers in her mind. Vanya is focused on one thing and one thing only. Pogo slides the door open for her to reveal Reginald at his desk. His head is bent and he is reading over a book open on his desk.

“Sit,” he commands and Vanya obeys.

She sits in silence while Reginald continues to pour over the book in front of her. It takes nearly fifteen minutes for him to sigh, close his book, and look up at Vanya.

“Number Seven, I assume you are aware of what a colossal disappointment this all has been. I allowed both you and Number Six to indulge your silly whims to pursue your - _ studies  _ and now I am left with limited options.”

Vanya had expected this. It’s why she resigned from Curtis and packed up her apartment in Philadelphia. It’s his money that pays her tuition and his money that pays her rent. She doubts Reginald would have even told her about Ben had he not been planning on having this exact meeting with her.

“As you know, Numbers Two, Three, and Four are currently displaced. Number Six is...indisposed leaving only -”

“I won’t do it.”

Never before had Vanya interrupted her father for fear of the consequences. At twenty-three, she fears him no less but she is determined.

“I  _ can’t _ . Not with Luther. Not with anyone. I can’t do what you’re going to tell me to do.”

His silent glare makes her stomach turn. Vanya’s breath is suddenly short, her mouth and throat slick with saliva. The bubble of nausea rises in her chest but Vanya swallows her unease.

“I can’t,” she manages to choke out.

She expects rage, for him to berate her or even for him to raise his hand against her but Reginald offers none of these things. Instead, he leans back in his chair. Somehow the unnatural sight of him at relative ease is worse than anything she had expected him to do.

“You are correct, Number Seven,” he says. “You will not be completing your mission with Number One.”

* * *

Despite what Pogo told him, Vanya never returns. More times than he’d like to admit, Five goes to her door and presses his ear against the paint hoping to hear anything beyond it but he never hears a thing. His vexation at her absence is only heightened by the conversation he had had with his father that first night.

_ I know what you really are, Number Five and so does Number Seven. _

His cruel words and the accusatory look his father gives him aren’t nearly half as distressing as their implication. That old fear bubbles up from beneath as intense as it had been when he was fifteen as though he hadn't pushed it down for eight years. Five does his best to put it out of his mind.

She even misses Ben’s funeral. In the end, Five is the only one of the siblings to attend which is just as well. It’s a sham. A ceremony is held and people amass, strangers mostly or fanatics who still remember the Academy in its prime. Five knows no one who attends but he recognizes a few faces. The current mayor attends and a few public officials as well. He sees them chatting casually with Reginald before the ceremony begins. There’s no body, at least not one that they could show the public. In lieu of a corpse, Reginald reveal a bronze statue of the fallen hero. It stares down at him with the perpetual benevolent features of his dead brother, what a good little martyr he turned out to be. Five feels like cutting it in half.

The first couple days after the funeral are relatively easy to get through on his own. He fills his time with international calls and emails. It’s a headache to transfer his classes over to professors with half mastery of the course material but it gets done in less time than he had expected. He almost misses the headache of leaving the university because now he’s left alone, stranded in a house that was more a prison than a home with his father’s words echoing his head.

_ I know what you really are, Number Five and so does Number Seven. _

After the fifth day, he starts to get angry. If there’s anything that Number Five can’t abide, its wasted time especially his. The work he’d been doing as an instructor and researcher wasn’t exactly saving the world but it had at least been useful, meaningful even. It’s better than pacing around his room day in and day out.

The silly thing is, Five knows that he could leave at any time, go back to Germany if he wants or to any institution of his choosing. His name alone would be enough to get him a position and a sizable grant to do his research. He could leave, walk out with little to no consequence but days pass and he never does.

He begins going through his old notebooks, filled to the brim with equations and theories. Some of it is nonsense, but much of it is the foundation for what has made him the best in his field today. A week goes by and restless sets in and nearly drives him insane. For eight years, Five had endured silence and indifference from the only family he had ever had. Though he was surrounded by other students, researches, professors, his age and unusual circumstances marked him as an outsider no matter where he went. Five had gotten good at being alone but it is the waiting.

The waiting is what breaks him. He thinks that if he could just see her, then he could leave. It isn’t true, of course. His anger and restlessness turns to resentment. Day in and day out, he waits for her. He waits with his father’s words still echoing in his head.

_ I know what you really are, Number Five and so does Number Seven. _

She knows what he really is, what he has done.  _ That’s  _ why she stays away for so long. That’s why she keeps him waiting.

By the time she actually returns, Five can’t stand to go see her. He stays locked in his room, scribbling on the walls like he’s a teenager again trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. Once or twice he thinks he hears the shuffle of footsteps outside of his doors but he ignores it. Grace occasionally knocks on his door reminding him of meal times but he ignores her. It isn’t until Pogo comes and tells him that it is time to begin the mission that he finally leaves his room.

Pogo leads him to an elevator that takes them down beneath the main house. Five vaguely remembers the way. When the Academy were younger, Reginald had brought them down there to undergo a series of tests. They follow a series of hallways to a dead end lined with a set of rooms, three doors on each side. Pogo points out the one that he is to enter. This time, the door is unlocked and when he enters he finds Reginald waiting for him.

“You here to tell me about the birds and the bees?” Five quips from the open door. “It’s a little late for that.”

“I’m impressed that you can take this all so lightly, Number Five. I’ve not come to ascertain whether or not you are up to the task. You’ve more than proven that you are capable but I have come to remind you of your role in this and of the grave sacrifice that Seven is making.”

At Reginald’s mention of Vanya, Five’s mood darkens. Guilt claws at him but he pushes it down because after two weeks waiting for her, he’s come to a conclusion. Vanya knows what he is. She knows what he’s done because he did it to her and still she agreed, still she would lay her body down for the sake of the Academy, another martyr. Even after death, Vanya and Ben are the same.

“I know what I’m here to do,” he replies to his father who responds with a curt nod before leaving.

When he sees her in that doorway, he is at once enraptured and repulsed, both thrilled and horrified at what he is about to do and all he can think is that she knows. She knows and she still comes to him, shaking hands and all. She remembers what he did to her and still she takes off her clothes and asks him about the lights.

Perhaps a better man would have tried to be gentle but Five no longer has any illusions about the kind of man he is, she certainly doesn’t. So he fucks her into the mattress with abandon. Her hands stop their shaking, too busy gripping his shoulders. He’s grateful for the pain of her short, sharp nails digging into his skin. It keeps him grounded, present. Her grip only tightens as his thrusts become more urgent, more erratic. He feels the skin beneath her nails break, blood dripping down his back but Five is beyond pain. He is beyond any logical thought. His world shrinks to the width of her hips and the searing, aching sensation of her body connected to his.

Vanya has her legs hooked around him, ankles crossed over the line of his back. He grips her left thigh and hikes her leg up further. His hand slips up and he runs a wide open palm along the soft curve of her ass. He allows himself a moment of reverence as he tips her hips forward. She drags her right hand up his shoulder, sharp nails and all, leaving behind angry red lines.

Vanya lets out a hiss as the new angle allows him to push into her, deeper, harsher. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, holding in the cries he so desperately wants to fuck out of her. Another thrust, his hand slips back down to her ass. He squeezes as he pushes into her and finally she lets loose a strangled cry. It only goads him further. His pace picks up, grinding out of her a string of desperate sounds somewhere between sobbing and choking.

Her eyes are screwed shut, tears budding at the corners. He looks down and sees that there's blood on her lip where she's bitten down. Five knows he’s close to the end. There's no rhythm to the movement of his hips now, just searing, desperate need. Heat blooms within him and he jerks forward one last time, pressing her into the mattress.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says because he cannot say her name.

He bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut. Not just because of the overwhelming wave of his own orgasm shuddering through his body but because he can't stand to look at her in the moment of her violation. He’s too afraid of the disgust he’s sure he'll find in her face as he comes inside of her. For all his resentment, his anger, his bitterness, he still can’t stand to see her hate him. Pleasure rushes through him and he loses track of time, it could have been less than a second that he's within her. It could have been an eternity.

He's still lost in time when he suddenly feels the hesitant but very real touch of fingertips upon his forehead. Shaky fingers ghost over the line of his hair, left to right, then down the line of his temple. His eyes snap open and he is looking into her eyes.

"Five," she whispers as her fingers reach the shell of his ear, tracing the curve.

Then, of all things, she smiles, tears slipping from the corner of her eyes. He watches them run into the mess of her hair splayed out across the pillow beneath her head. Five pulls away so violently that he nearly topples off the bed. She follows him forward, concern replacing the smile she had worn before. He’s quick to hop to his feet, seeking out his boxers and pulling them on.

He makes the mistake of turning to look at her once more. In the unforgiving fluorescent light, she is rendered so small and frail. Her pale skin is flushed, nipples raw from his attentions. He looks down at her hands, caked beneath her fingernails is his blood. His eyes snap back to her face. Vanya opens her mouth, the shape of his name on her lips once more, then there’s a flash of blue light and he’s in the bathroom next to his room.

The shock of the sudden feeling of cool bathroom tile beneath his feet is enough to keep him grounded. His own labored breathing is the only sound in the room. Five drops to his knees hard in front of the toilet, the impact surely bruising his knees. He leans over the bowl and empties his stomach.

He keeps retching for a few minutes longer before rising to stand before the sink. Cupping his hands beneath the running faucet, he collects a handful of ice cold water then dips his head to splash it on his face. It does not help with how dirty he feels. No amount of water could help him in that department. When he rises, he is met by the reflection of his father in the doorway. By now, Five is so numbed by what he’s just done that he can hardly be surprised.

Reginald glares at him in the mirror, shaking his head he says, “pull yourself together, man.”

With that, he leaves Five alone. Only his own reflection stares back at him from the mirror now, eye bloodshot and skin sallow.

_ She knew  _ , he thinks.  _ She had known all along what she was doing, what she had signed up for. _

His reflection looks unconvinced. Five raises his fist and puts it through the glass.


	3. running up that hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five takes a less than pleasant walk down memory lane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a reference to a song of the same name which was almost all ya gurl listened to while writing this horrific chapter. I listened to the Placebo version but Kate Bush and I are the same person so I love that version as well.

Five's always been in the habit of hyper-fixating but more often than not his ability to focus has worked in his favor. When he had first arrived at MIT, his instructors and advisers had been a little taken aback by his immediate determination to bulldoze through whatever they put in front of him. He makes mincemeat of the placement tests, coursework, finals. He quickly rises as an emerging, if incredibly cavalier, star in the department. After less than a year, he’s surpassed the vast majority of the student body and over half of the staff. He’s remarkable if not a bit arrogant and difficult to work with but his work is astounding and he rises and keeps going and doesn’t ever really stop. Eight years of study, contributions to the field via literature, instruction, research, he lives like bullet train rushing towards a destination unknown. Many things can be said about Five, some less flattering than others, but it cannot be said that Five lacks focus. He has an abundance of it for the things that he feels truly matters. This is no different when it comes to Vanya.

However, even hyper-fixation seems too casual a term to explain what Five had felt, still feels towards Vanya. Often, especially during those eight years away, Five wonders where it comes from, this insatiable need to consume any and every part of her that he can get his hands on. And after countless hours, days, months spent agonizing over it, he can find no beginning. If he’s honest, even after years of never even seeing her face, Five can imagine no end. He’d known since before he was a teenager that his feelings for Vanya were different than his feelings towards the rest of the Academy. By thirteen, he knows that he’s in love with her but not exactly how to say it. He thinks he doesn’t have to.

Number Five at thirteen is not much different from Number Five at fifteen or even twenty-three in that he pursues his interests in the only way he knows how, insatiably and with abandon.  They are sitting in her room in one of the those rare moments spent alone and free. She is at her desk, wedged within lines created by the side of her bed and the right corner of the room.

The math work their tutor had assigned them a few hours earlier is giving her trouble. While Trig had been a breeze for her, Geometry has been giving her trouble. Admittedly, Five isn’t all that big of a fan of Geometry himself, but he had still breezed through it in less than fifteen minutes and could have finished it for her just as easily. But if she finishes her work, then she'll be up and chasing after the others, trying so desperately to be one of them. He likes her better likes this, alone with him in her room.

She reaches up and tucks a hunk of hair that's fallen into her face behind her ear. Her slim wrists and forearms are uncharacteristically exposed. It’s only in her room, in private that she ever allows herself to be seen like this, sleeves rolled up to reveal her smooth, unmarked skin most notably the empty space found on the inside of her left wrist. Five glances at his own wrist, the bold, black brand of the Umbrella Academy as clear as day. He wishes he could scrub it clean, hold it up to her and say, "we’re the same now, we match perfectly. You aren’t alone because you have me.”

He needs to touch her, the urge is sudden and he isn’t yet in the habit of denying such compulsions so without hesitation he reaches up and takes a lock of her hair between his fingers. She doesn't notice, not even when he rolls the fine strands between his thumb and forefinger. Only he ever sees her like this, so open and exposed. It's endearing, the way her nose scrunches up when she’s focused. She makes that face sometimes when he's talking at her about his theories on space and time. But currently her attention is undoubtedly not on him but rather on her homework. This doesn’t sit well with him so he pulls swiftly on the lock of hair between his fingers.

“Five!" she yelps his name as her gaze falls on him.

He doesn’t have the words yet to describe the thrill that runs through him as his name passes through her lips like that, breathless and full of emotion. He is stunned for a moment by that feeling, before a wry grin splits his lips. Vanya doesn’t stand a chance. Her own smile is eminent even as she rolls her eyes at his antics. No one would accuse Number Five of being charming, charismatic perhaps or even intriguing but not charming. He saves all his charm for her.

She shifts in her seat so that she can lean over him. Her fair falls about his face like a curtain and he can smell the clean, neutral scent of the soap and shampoo they all use but beneath that is something else, something warmer and sweeter, something that is purely Vanya. His eyes slip closed and he lets her attention wash over him as she draws the line of his face with her fingertips, across his forehead, down the side of his face.

When her fingers curl under his jaw, he opens his eyes and finds her gaze on him. She smiles softly with such openness that his breath catches in his throat. She is so close to him now, they are practically breathing each other in and yet it still isn't enough. He wants to close the distance between them. Not just with a kiss. He’s kissed her before. Her lips, her teary eyes, the sweet corners of her mouth but it isn’t enough. More and more, Five is struck with the feeling that even when they are as close as they can be, he wants her even closer.

“You always do that,” he murmurs reaching up to tap the knuckles of her fingers that are still tucked under his face. “What’s it supposed to mean?”

Her reaction is unexpected and sudden. She pulls her hand back as though she’s been burned. Her face shifts and gone is the openness and her sweet smile melts into worry. Her face is a portrait of insecurity.

“Sorry,” she says as she leans back into her seat. “Is it annoying? Should I stop?”

She’s so skittish, even with him. It makes his heart ache.

“Never,” he replies earnestly.

Five reaches out and takes back the hand that she had drawn away. As he laces their fingers together, he sits up slightly, leaning on his elbows. Her hands are smaller than his own. Thin, delicate fingers that are stronger than they look. She doesn’t try to pull her hand back but she also doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I just want to know what it means,” he implores gently, trying to look into her face.

"Does it need to have a meaning?" she murmurs.

He considers her question and after a few beats he replies, "yes.”

She laughs at that and then hums in thought before rising from her seat. As she stands, she disentangles her hand from his. Five frowns at the loss of contact but it isn’t long before she’s urging him to move over so that they can be side by side. He scoots over, still on his back and she slides onto the mattress, her thigh pressing up against his shoulder. The metal coils of the bed frame creak beneath their combined weight but Five barely even registers the sound. He is too concerned with the thought that they are separated now by only the heavy cotton fabric of their uniforms.

"How about this,” her voice pulls him back to himself and he swallows thickly. “It can mean whatever you want it to mean to you, and it can mean what it means to me. And we’ll say that both are equally true. That way, we both know exactly what it means."

Fives stares up at her and marvels at how pretty she is in the afternoon light. He wants her to touch him again, run her hands around the curve of his face like she had done before. Number Five has never been one for physical shows of affection. The occasional pat on the back from Diego or Klaus casually draping his arm over his shoulder for a few moments after completing a mission was all he could stomach most of the time. When Grace had been presented to them as their new mother, he had avoided her, with her too-bright smiles and fluttering, reaching hands, like the plague. But with Vanya, he can barely contain his voracity.

She says that it can mean whatever he wants it to. Five wants it to mean that she loves him. Loves him not the way she loves the other Hargreeves children, not the way she loves to play the violin or the way she loves winter. He wants it to mean that she loves him in a way that is better than any other love she’s known and will ever know, a fuller love, a love that is more complete. He wants her to love him the way he loves her. The urge to press further, root out her meaning to see if it matches his own already has a response at the ready to volley back at her but then she smiles at him and the words die in his mouth. It is that smile, that secret smile of hers that fills her whole face with joy and mischief that seems to be for him and him only. And just like that, he is at a loss.

Ten years later, as he stares into the fractured image of his own reflection in the broken bathroom mirror, he still remembers that secret smile of hers. He had pressed his lips against that smile. He could still remember the feel it, the smell of her hair, the taste of her spit when he had pushed the kiss further and pressed into her.

Five sighs at his broken reflection. Even hours later, he can still feel the burn of last night’s sick at the back of his throat. It’s morning now but he hasn’t slept a wink. The mirror remains shattered but the glass has been cleaned out of the room, no doubt the work of Grace or even Pogo.

He’s just finishing up his second go of trying to brush the taste of bile out of his mouth when he hears faint knocking. Someone is at his bedroom door. He pops his head out of the door, fully expecting to see either Grace or Pogo, even Reginald before he expects to see her.

It must have taken Vanya hours to build up the courage to take the short walk up to his room. He watches her agonize over just knocking on his door. Feeling generous, he decides to save her the trouble.

"What are you doing here?”

"Five!” she yelps but immediately regrets her outburst when he winces at her volume. “Sorry. Scared me a little.”

His eyes give nothing away as he stares blankly at her. Five had wholly perfected the art of the dead-eyed, impassive stare. Briefly, his gaze flickers to her bottom lip. It’s swollen from where she had bit back her voice last night until it bled. His mind wanders to last night but Five pushes down the freshly made memories and turns his attention back to what she’s saying.

"I-I wanted to see of you were all right,” she mumbles.

"If I'm all right?"

Vanya has begun to squirm beneath his gaze. The harsh, bewildered tone of his reply does nothing to relieve her discomfort. The looks on his face trips her up, he looks at her as though she's grown a second head.

"Last night you - you seemed...upset,” she explains, her voice getting smaller and smaller with every word.

“Gee I wonder why, Number Seven."

The use of her number instead of her name feels like a slap to the face. Her eyes snap up to him, hurt and shock so painfully clear on her face. She can’t remember the last time he’s called her by her number after she had been given her name.

Something other than contempt crosses Five’s face as he sighs. His shoulders slump and he runs his right hand over his face. A motion he regrets because as soon as she sees it Vanya’s eyes widen at the sight. After he had put it through the mirror, Grace had arrived to clean and bandage it. Despite this, the hand still looked nasty, a blotchy, bruised mess. She instinctively moves closer, reaching out as if to cradle his hand in hers. Five flinches back, wary of her touch and she deflates.

"Why are you really here, Vanya?” he says leaning against the doorframe. “Did Reginald send you?"

“Dad? No I just -”

She struggles to find the words to explain herself, nose scrunching up in concentration. The sight of that endearing habit causes a stab of affection to strike through him. Panic rises in him. He scrambles to harden himself against her charm.

“Look. We both agreed to do this - thing but that doesn’t mean we have to talk or interact more than we need to. In fact, it’s best that we avoid unneeded contact as much as we can.”

“But-”

He cuts her off again, “we fuck, Vanya. That’s it. Don’t make this more complicated than it already is.”

He watches her face crumble at his words. It’s good of her to try to be decent. He knows this but there is no room for decency between them anymore. He wonders if there had ever been.

Her eyes drop, her voice and shoulders with them, as she murmurs, “I’m glad you're okay, Five.”

She nods once before turning away towards the stairs. Five keeps his eyes on her as she retreats down the stairs. For a long time after, he stares at the place where she dips out of sight below the floor.

* * *

Five is determined to take his own advice and avoid her at all cost. And he manages to succeed, for all of fifty minutes before he begins to intentionally seek her out. He wanders the house, pretending that he is aimless but being back at the Academy is like being a car on a track. His eyes scan every room he enters, every hall he traverses for any trace of her. His body seeks out hers, like a planet drawn in by the gravity of the sun. It was just the same when they were kids. For a literal genius, Number Five still hasn't figured out that simply wishing to stay away won’t actually keep him from pursuing her but self-deceit is a one hell of a drug.

It had been easier to avoid her when they had had the entire world and eight years of silence between them. Though maybe not. He had spent eight years trying to build a real life, a reputation with his work, his studies, his innumerable contributions to his field but when given half the chance, he had jumped at the opportunity to have her again.

Eventually he finds himself in the main parlor over in the West Wing. A wide, high ceilinged room that, like many of the rooms in the Academy, contained numerous knick-knacks and oddities. Many a meeting of the “esteemed” Umbrella Academy had been held within these walls. This is where they were given the protocol for their very first mission and where they got their individual portraits taken by a photographer, except Vanya who had stood in the doorway forlorn. It’s where they all receive their names from Grace, Five excluded of course. It’s also where he lost her.

They are at the edge of winter in their fifteenth year, when Reginald decides to gather them in that same parlor to inform them about a new mission. Reginald has them stand in formation, a single line starting from Number 1 thru 6 to announce their new objective. It would have been like any other pointless relay of information except for the simple fact of Vanya’s presence. There had been some strange looks from the rest of the Academy as she files in and even more so when Reginald has her stand in her numerically assigned place besides Ben.

Reginald makes them wait for a few minutes in silence, until they are just a little antsy before finally beginning.

“Children, as you know, your duty is first and foremost to me and to the World."

Before he can continue, Five interrupts.

"Well which is it?" he asks, feigning true bewilderment but he’s barely able to contain his smirk.

Reginald’s glare falls on him but Five doesn’t flinch.

"Number Five, I am perplexed as to what you found so confusing about my previous statement.”

They’ve all heard it many times before. Reginald starts off every meeting with that same line about who they are beholden to. This is the first time anyone has ever commented on it.  

"Well, which one is first and foremost?” he asks. “You or the world?"

By now, Five can’t hold back his smugness. He knows that the rest of the Academy is holding their breath, all of them watching what he'll do. More importantly, Vanya is watching him. He can feel the heat of her gaze on him and he’s glad for it. When he glances over at her, there’s mostly concern on her face but he also sees beneath that, her secret smile, his smile.

"You may think of them as one in the same, Number Five."

Five narrows his eyes, meeting Reginald’s glare with his own sardonic smile.

“Well, thank you for giving me permission.”

How foolhardy he had been. All the while, Reginald had had an ace up his sleeve. After a few more grand words, he delves into the mission. He phrases it as clinically as possible, scrubbed clean of any sordid implications but still they are all left in awe. It isn't that Reginald’s plan doesn’t make sense. According to his rhetoric, the Academy is supposed to save the world. Not an easy task with only seven members. Reginald had assured them that other avenues to growing and perpetuating the Academy had proven themselves to be dead ends and now the task had fallen to them.

“Numbers 1 and 3 will be heading this mission,” Reginald had concluded. “The rest of you are to do your best to support them in their possible absence from other missions.”

Of course, Reginald would choose Luther and Allison. The old man, and frankly the entire household, had already surmised their mutual attraction for one another. A smart move on Reginald’s part, at least now he held some control over them. That isn’t what leaves Five stunned. Sex, pregnancy, children, all these things had either been foreign concepts or far from their minds before this but now, it's all any of them can think about, Five included. His eyes fall on Vanya almost immediately both desperate and frightened to meet her eyes but she’s turned her attention to her feet.

Then Reginald adds, “and in the event that Number 1 and Number 3 cannot complete this mission, the responsibility will fall to Number 7 and -”

Five’s never pegged Reginald as one for dramatics but from the look in the old man’s eyes, he’s pleased at reaction he’s caused. Even Allison and Luther seem surprised by his addition. They too are in the dark about this branch of Reginald's plan. He scans the faces of all the children but it is Five that his dark glare settles on. What is that Five remembers seeing there in Reginald’s eyes? Was it contempt? Smug satisfaction? Or was it absolutely nothing at all within Reginald’s eyes as he swings the hammer of his words down.

“Number 6.”

Five can barely remember what else was said after that. Klaus makes some comment about feeling left out and Diego scoffs and adds something else that is probably just as ridiculous but Five processes none of it. He stands completely still even as his thoughts run wild at a mile a minute. As soon as they are dismissed, he blinks out of sight.

The memory of that day still aches like an old scar. No longer willing to stew in it, Five leaves from the room. He intends to make his way to the library. Its the coolest room in the house above ground and Vanaya had always loved to sit in there in the summer.  But something draws him in the opposite direction as he turns around and heads for their rooms instead. Though her room had been empty when he had passed by it earlier, she may have returned by now.

Her room is just as much a hotbed of difficult memories but still, he’s drawn to it, a moth to the flame. He had fled to her room after Reginald’s announcement, blinking into the tiny, familiar space and nearly collapsing into her desk chair. It doesn’t take her long to find him there. She knows him too well. He's seated at her desk, his back to her as she enters. The soft sound of her heavy breathing tells him that she’s run the whole way.

"Your first mission,” he murmurs, voice low.

He sounds like murder, he knows but he’s replayed the thought of Ben and Vanya together so many times in his head in this small amount of time that he feels like he really could commit murder at this point.

“You're finally one of them. Just like you always wanted."

He hears her step further into the room. As she approaches, Number Five is struck suddenly by the urge to pull her into the room and tie her down. If he can make it so that she can’t ever leave, if he can just keep her here, just the two of them in her room, then perhaps that would ease his aching mind.

"Five," she says and her hesitant voice snaps him back to reality but before she can reassure him he interrupts, spinning in his seat to face her.

"This doesn’t change anything," he says, fiercely. "For us, I mean. It won't matter that you're - that you and Ben...this doesn't change anything between us."

You're still mine and I'm still yours. We still belong to each other, he doesn't say but his meaning is clear.

He gets up and approaches her, demanding, “you say it too. Say that nothing is going to change. I need to hear you say it.”

It had been the first time they had spoken openly about what was between them, had given it a life outside of their own heads. She repeats his sentiment back to him that day but he should have known she wouldn’t be able to honor it. Vanya had always been so desperate to be like the rest of them. He remembers finding the smudged imitation of the umbrella brand that she had drawn on her own wrist the day the rest of them had been give the real one. Now she had finally been given an in and all it would cost is him.

He had never been enough. He never would be.

Eight years later, Number Five climbs the stairs to the floor that holds the others’ rooms. It’s been eight years since that fateful day on the edge of winter but the memory of it is still fresh in his mind. As he approaches her room, Five notices that her door is wide open. Before he even gets to the opening, he knows that she isn’t there. It’s almost noon now and her room is warm with the summer sunlight pouring in through her open window. He’s spent the entire morning just wandering around looking for her. The creeping doubt that she is even still in the house sneaks into his mind. She might have been gone for hours now. He could leave too but then he runs to risk of missing her.

The vacant space of her empty room echoes his own hollowness at failing to find her yet again. Five’s never been good at being idle. In fact, he hates it but he can’t bring himself to focus on any other task. Not even the equations he’s freshly etched on his wall over the past weeks can hold his attention. He leaves her room and the living quarters all together. With no real destination in mind, Five continues on.

Wandering through the house trying to find her like this is vaguely nostalgic for Number Five. Eight years ago, after Reginald gives them their new mission, it takes less than two weeks for Vanya’s attentions to drift. She avoids their usual haunts, the observatory, the kitchen after curfew. Even in the dead of the winter, he waits in the courtyard beneath the gazebo hoping she'll honor their tradition of meeting there on Saturday afternoons when Reginald allows them an hour or so of coveted free time. She never shows. And when he does manage to track her down, she's never alone. Occasionally its Allison who is stuck to her, finally they have something in common, but more often than not it's Ben who’s with her, the two of them seemingly attached at the hip.

It gets to the point where he’s frustrated enough to blink into the security booth that he knows Reginald keeps in a hidden room in the East Wing. He spends nearly fifteen minutes scanning the screens, waiting to spot her on her own. He knows that it’s reckless and illogical but he can’t stop once he’s started. As soon as he spots her alone, sitting on a staircase in the East Wing, he’s blinking to the bottom of the stairs.

They are in the dead of winter now and though it's only midday the sky has already begun to darken. The large window set into the wall of the landing does nothing to help brighten the area. Five is just a shape in the dim but she seems to know him on sight, her eyes lighting up. She's halfway to a smile before it crumples and she rises to leave up the stairwell. Perhaps she hadn't known it was him after all. Either way, Five is having none of it. He jumps in a flash of blue light to the stair just above her, blocking her exit. He remembers how she flies back in surprise almost tipping backwards down the stairs. Her waist is tiny in his hands as he catches her and pulls her in.

As if pulled there by the memory, Five finds himself standing at the bottom of those same stairs. He walks up to the fifth step, hand trailing along the fine wooden bannister and pauses, the memory of that afternoon is still raw in his mind even after nearly ten years.

They hadn’t had a moment alone together in weeks and Five feels so wretchedly desperate. To finally have her close, in his arms, Five reacts like a starving man would to a buffet. He’s quick to pull her closer, arms locking around her middle as he hauls her up to stand besides him. She’s so close that she fills every one of his senses, he leans in to push his face into the crook of her neck. He just wants to breathe her in. Be close again but she puts up her palm and presses it into the line of his chest. His pulse is erratic beneath her touch. Strange how one moment, you can want to embrace someone one moment and then shake them the next.

She pushes him back and the shock of that rejection leaves him off kilter and he stumbles backwards. As quickly as possible she steps around him and continues up the stairs. For a second, he’s stunned and she gets as far as the landing but in a flash of blue and he's in front of her again. They are face to face on the landing which branches off into two staircases that lead in opposite directions. Vanya jumps back a little when he appears before her. But she recovers quickly, turning on her heel towards the other set of stairs. An electrical pop and he blocking her way again.

“Stop it, Five,” she says, frustration clear on her face.

“You stop it,” he volleys back with just as much frustration.

At his outburst, her eyes soften. Vanya parts her lips, as if there's something she wants to say. Part of him, the part that is still just a child despite his literal genius, the kill count he has under his belt, his entire ridiculous existence, hopes that this is where something gives. Vanya will change her mind. i and come to her senses. Because over the last few weeks, Five feels like he is going insane. Maybe it’s the winter, so cold and desolate, or puberty or something in the water but Five finds that without her his life feels devoid of any meaning, of any light. In her soft eyes and remorseful expression, he finds hope that perhaps the insanity will stop. With simple change of expression and a swift turn, Vanya tramples that hope into the ground.

Five watches her harden right before his eyes. Her mouth twists shut, the light behind her eyes go dark and is replaced with determination, a determination to leave him. When she spins to follow through on that determination, the sight of her turning from him is too much. He reacts and it's - forceful the way he grabs at her, more forceful than is needed to take hold of his sister who, at fifteen, is still just a slip of a girl. Vanya doesn’t have time react before he has her pinned against the wall. He’d like to blame his combat training, muscle memory at work but it would be more honest to admit that he wants to hurt her, wants her to feel even a fraction of what she’s done to him.

But he regrets it immediately. Five remembers the look on her face as she blinks up at him, the blood dribbling from her split lip down her chin. She must have bit her lip when she hit the wall. He’s seen that look so many times before, on the faces of criminals, enemies, even his own siblings but never Vanya. It’s fear. She’s afraid. Of him and that should stop him, he should be horrified at what he’s done but he isn’t. Instead, he’s insatiable and he feels it like a fever all throughout his body. He’s finally got her cornered, trapped beneath his own weight. Before he even knows what he’s doing, he’s pressing a brutal kiss to her mouth. It is unlike any other kiss they’ve shared before. Desperate, violent, needy, it tastes of her spit and blood. His slips up her neck, to her jaw and cradles her face within.

She doesn't push him away but she doesn't kiss him back either. Vanya is completely still beneath him. Just as soon as it comes, the heat dies and he is left cold and hollowed out by her indifference.

As he pulls away, he feels like screaming but all his frustration and hurt closes up his throat; his voice is barely a whisper as he asks, "Why are you doing this to me?"

The question and his obvious anguish seems to garner a reaction. Her mouth, a red smudge from his attentions, drops open as if to say something but she never does. Instead, her eyes shift to the right and widen. He follows her gaze to find Allison at the bottom of the staircase staring up at them. Her eyes move rapidly between them, the blood that must surely be on both their mouths and his hands pinning her to the wall.

"Let her go, Number Five," she says, her voice low as she puts one foot on the bottom stair.

She raises a hand and holds it out in front of her as if she's dealing with a wild animal. He scoffs, nearly laughs at the pale, flat expanse of her palm. Number Three takes another step forward up the stairs.

"I heard a -"

His eyes narrow and he cuts her off, "save it, Number Three."

He steps back from Vanya, his eyes still on his other sister. Not just because she’s a threat but also because he’s suddenly afraid to see the look on Vanya’s face. Is she relieved? Afraid? Or is she disappointed that they’ve been interrupted. Is she wishing, like he is, that the world would just fall away and leave them alone? As much as he longs to know, Five is far more afraid that she’s looking at Allison with gratitude for saving her. He hears Vanya huff behind him as if she had been holding her breath. She’s so close that he can feel the soft, warm rush of air on the back of his neck. Still glaring down at Allison, he blinks out of sight.

There’s no way for Five to know how long he’s lingered there on the stairwell, lost in the memory of that horrific incident. Allison never looks at him the same after that, none of them do but that particular incident isn’t why the rest of the Academy turns on him. Not that it was much of a loss on his part. By that time the Academy was less of a cohesive team and more a failing mechanism barely limping along. Walking up the stairs, he compulsively follows the same trek that he and Vanya had taken all those years ago. On the landing, he approaches the wall that he held her up against, seeking out any evidence of his violence against her but finds nothing.

He wants so badly just to see her. That would surely be enough for him, just to see her. But this isn’t true because if he saw her, he’d want to touch her and if touched her then he’d want to be inside of her. He presses his forehead into the hard, dark wood remembering the taste of her blood, spit, and fear and wonders if she would have tasted the same last night. When she had finally relented, writhing beneath him, he had seen the blood in her mouth from where she had broken the skin trying to hold back her voice. A hot, aching wave of desire rushes through him. His self-disgust is a bottomless well.

His coveted eidetic memory is turning in on itself, eating him from the inside out as the image of her body arching into him assaults his mind. Then suddenly the blood on her lips, the afternoon light in her room, and the smell of salt tears in her hair. His head is spinning, memory layered upon memory bearing down on him like a gun fire. Pressing his forehead harder against hardwood surface, he tries to ground himself but it's no use.

Five is still in dizzying freefall when the thin sound of a violin breaks through his downward spiral. So anemic, Five thinks he may just be dreaming it but he follows the sound nonetheless to the great window at the center of the landing wall. It overlooks the courtyard and just below it is a familiar sight, the gazebo. She’s there, in _their_ place. The notion makes his heart swell.

Still woozy on his feet, he doesn’t trust himself to teleport. He flies down the stairs, nearly tripping more than a few times over his own feet. Scrambling to the door that leads out into the courtyard, Five doesn’t realize that the music has stopped. He pushes the door out and steps into a silent courtyard. The gazebo is empty, not more than ten feet in front of him. There’s a moment when he’s sure that he has legitimately gone insane but then he sees the open violin case on the ground. Her violin has been placed within it, the bow, haphazardly laid besides it.

Five steps forward once more before he hears her, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

The color drains from his face but he continues to approach. Five has never been much of a masochist. He would rather avoid any discomfort where he could, but for her, he not only endures the pain, he seeks it out. Had she been standing, her tiny frame would have barely passed Ben’s shins. But she isn’t standing when he sees her. She’s folded up, on her knees, hands and face pressed into Ben’s memorial plaque.

“Please forgive me, Ben,” she whimpers as tears slip down her face.

It is then that Number Five realizes that he's always been at a loss when it comes to Vanya. She's always had the upper hand. Even now, after what they've done, she can weep at the feet of their dead brother's alter and ask for forgiveness. While he watches and wants to lick up those tears while fucking her against the concrete platform until her back is raw from the porous stone. Because there's nothing left between them besides that. Whatever love or affection he had imagined that she reciprocated back when they were kids is just that, imaginary. He empties his stomach and puts his hand through a mirror but she can still ask if he's all right the next day. There's no way he wins this game so why play by the rules? She’s so high above him, so he’ll tear her down in anyway that he can.

Five turns and marches away with renewed determination to harden his heart, however ruined and pitch black it may be, against her. He knows that he’s a bastard, a disgusting horrible wretch but he'll be damned if he's a fool as well. Because here's the ugly truth. Five isn't upset because he's fucking the woman that should have been with his dead brother. He's not upset because he's Reginald's second or third or fourth choice or if he's a last resort. It doesn't matter that she cried and grit her teeth last night. Because the fact of the matter is, he's won. Hasn't he? He waited out the competition, played the long odds and in the end, he got her but what pisses him off is that it isn't enough.

Five wants more, always more. He wants the same thing he’s wanted since he was thirteen and they were sat up in her room puzzling out the meaning of her hand upon his face. He wants her to feel it, feel what he's feeling. He wants her to feel how just the sight, the feel, the taste of her can tear him asunder. The rest? The mission, all the years and miles they had spent apart, the corpse of their brother between them, none of it matters because in the end, he’s the one who’s fucking her, making bite her lip until it bleeds and she can do nothing but cry and writhe beneath him. He'd wade through as many dead brothers and crocodile tears as he needs to if he can keep her. But what he can't stomach, can't stand is her martyrdom, her insistence on playing the sacrificial lamb. It’s just like Reginald said, she remembers what he’s done, to her, to Ben and she still agreed. She doesn't get to play the victim with him. He won’t let her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very very sorry if this was boring or super confusing. I really didn't want to italics and do full blown flashbacks with Five's memories just because imma save those flashback italics for something else. lemme know what you thought of it? If it was worth anything ahahah. sorry it was such a long one >.<


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